


all of this could be yours if the price is right

by captainangua



Series: DeanCas shorts [20]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, Awkward Dean Winchester, Case Fic, Castiel in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Has Abandonment Issues, Dean Winchester Has a Crush on Castiel, Dean Winchester Has a Sexuality Crisis, Dean Winchester Misses Castiel, Dean Winchester Tries, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jack Kline Needs A Hug, M/M, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Movie Night, POV Dean Winchester, Pining, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester Knows, Season/Series 13, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:26:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainangua/pseuds/captainangua
Summary: Everybody's ok, and Dean does his best to relax.But something's definitely watching him.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Crowley (Supernatural) & Dean Winchester, Jack Kline & Dean Winchester
Series: DeanCas shorts [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/185708
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	all of this could be yours if the price is right

**Author's Note:**

> using tmg songs for fic titles again? who, me??
> 
> Anyway, knowing what a fan of slasher movies/80s movies dean is i need him to have seen freddy's revenge

Dean blinked a few times, feeling like he’d picked up a new concussion no one had told him about. His head wasn’t sore exactly but it felt… fuzzy.

Luckily, Cas only rolled his eyes and repeated the question.

“Did you find any occasion the spirit attacked the theatre on any night but opening night?”

Dean frowned. Right, the case. Instead of focusing on that, he’d just been caught up staring at Cas’s face again - something that had been happening more and more regularly these days. “Well, no, but -”

“So, there’s no reason we can’t finish finding the grave tomorrow, is there?”

Shaking his head, Dean sunk back in his armchair. “Well, what if the ghost just changes up his M.O. this time?”

“Then that wouldn’t be your fault,” Cas said firmly, and refilled Dean’s glass. “Not even Sam’s still with his books. I think you can relax.”

But Dean still didn’t feel like it. Sure, it was late, but they’d worked all night to get their man, or ghost, back in the day. Giving up this early felt like… well, like giving up, especially with a case as nearby as this one. But Cas looked so fond, and the chair was comfy and the bourbon they’d dug up went down pretty smooth.

“Yeah, alright,” Dean agreed, to a smile from Cas. To think he’d once thought it was the biggest victory in the world just to make the angel’s lips twitch every now and then. Now Cas lived in his home and smiled at the slightest thing. It was… nice.

“You wanna keep on with the _Elm Streets_?”

Cas made a face but followed Dean towards the Deancave when Dean stood up. “Dean, it wasn’t a good movie.”

“Uh-uh, hang on with that until you see the first sequel. I wanna hear what you think of that one.”

“I suspect it’s still going to involve a lot of teenagers getting slaughtered in unlikely ways.”

Dean raised a finger. “No, no, no, see that’s the big thing about this movie. Weirdly low body count. Part of why it was such a controversial one.”

“People didn’t like that it didn’t have many deaths?”

“Yeah, people hated that. And they thought it was gay.”

Though he didn’t turn to see it, Dean knew exactly what face Cas was making. “Well, is it?”

“How should I know?”

Cas took a seat in one of the chairs. It would be a long time until the room came together, but it was getting there. Just a TV and some decorations to get in, and then he could show it off to Sam. He didn’t mind Cas seeing it in its current state, Cas never judged.

“You do seem to know an awful lot about it…”

“Aw, c’mon just watch the thing.”

As Dean switched on the laptop it made the weirdest sputtering noise, and sparked in his hands. Dean didn’t drop it, but he came close. “What the _hell_ -”

“Dean?”

Now Dean wanted to drop the laptop. The voice almost sounded familiar… but not. It sounded like a kid talking.

Great. Of course, his laptop was haunted as well as virus-ridden.

Carefully, Dean lifted and turned the thing in his hands, but nothing else seemed to be wrong with it. It was making all its regular start-up noises now like it hadn’t just almost exploded in his face.

“Dean… is this necessary?”

“Huh?” Dean looked up to see Cas frowning at him with some concern.

“Is something wrong?”

“You didn’t hear that?”

Now Cas looked _real_ concerned.

Kinda sweet, that.

“Just you, Dean.”

Dean let out a long breath. This was supposed to be a night off, not a night he invented something new to fight.

“Never mind,” he muttered, and flipped the laptop back the right way up.

*

Sighing one last time to remind Sam of his disapproval, Dean watched his brother sling a rucksack over his shoulder. “Well, call if you need back up.”

“I think me and Mom can handle this”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t have all this magical double-o back-up behind her now…”

“No, but she’ll have me.”

Dean let his face go blank. “Adorable. Get outta here already.”

“You and Cas alright finishing up the theatre case?”

Rolling his eyes, Dean leaned back against the kitchen unit, hand groping around for the coffee he’d left beside him. “Routine salt and burn, Sammy. We got it.” Dean took a slow drink to hide his smile. “Cas stayed up and found where our guy’s buried.”

Sam’s face twitched suspiciously. “Y’know. Maybe you should do something else with Cas sometime. More than just hunts and movie nights.”

“What?” Dean put down the coffee. “ _Why_? The guy doesn’t _eat_ – what else is there?”

“I’m just saying… Maybe Cas wants to try other things. He’s not got to do much for fun, like, ever. Maybe treat him to something more than your favourite cowboy and slasher movies sometimes.”

Dean snorted. “Oh yeah, why don’t you?”

Sam took a deep breath, then seemed to deflate. “Nope,” he said, apparently to himself. “Not today.”

“ _What_? Anyway, Cas likes my movies, don’tcha, Cas?”

Jumping as the angel wandered in behind him and picked up Dean’s coffee, Sam’s face quickly resumed smiling.

“It was gay,” Cas said gravely, taking a long drink of Dean’s coffee.

Refusing to catch his brother’s eye, Dean through up his hands and left the room. “Alright, Sam’s leaving now.”

“Oh, I have time to talk…”

“No – no you don’t.”

*

It was a dick move to let Cas dig on his first salt-and-burn maybe, but he _did_ have super strength.

“Besides,” Dean explained again as he watched, oddly fixated on the sight of the muscles beneath Cas’s rolled up sleeves. “There’s my bad back to think of.” For emphasis, Dean stretched out his arms behind him and almost managed to lose his balance on the headstone he was perching on.

Cas stopped his digging, looking that perfect mix of annoyed-but-fond Dean hadn’t even realised he’d been aiming for. “You don’t have a bad back.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I healed that for you. It should be gone.”

Dean pouted and sat up a little straighter. “Huh. Thanks.”

“So, do you want to take a turn?”

“Not really. I’m enjoying the view,” he said before he could stop himself. By some small miracle, Cas didn’t react to this, but only continued digging. Dean felt some tension he’d been holding start to release. Right. Cas probably didn’t even get what he meant. What he _hadn’t_ meant – he was just… Yeah.

“It’s uh,” Dean said, mouth doing its best to cover it up even though his brain was screaming to leave it alone, “it’s kinda fun seeing an angel all covered in dirt.”

“Well, I’m glad this is entertaining for you.”

Something about Cas’s tone made Dean think back to whatever it was Sam had been trying to say. Maybe he did take Cas for granted too much. Maybe he should be taking him out to theatres for reasons other than hauntings. Cinemas, too. Hell, Dean wouldn’t ever be that guy, but maybe Cas was an art museum guy.

Or gardens. Dean had this feeling Cas’d be into gardens.

“Cas…”

“Yes?”

“You ever wanna be doing something else?”

Cas continued digging, and though it was dark Dean could see how confused he was. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Something else. For fun. With your life. Chuck and Amara fucked off, Lucifer’s crammed back in the cage, the British douchebags are all back across the Atlantic… You ever think about doing something else?”

Now Cas stopped digging again. “Would you like me to?”

“What? No. I just… I don’t want to feel like I’m – like we’re holding you back or something. You could go do _anything_ now.”

“So could you.”

Dean huffed and looked away. “Well, there’d always be this.”

“Well then I’ll be here. So long as you want me to be.”

That wasn’t true, Dean thought, like Cas had already walked away from him, like he’d already watched it happen. Why would he stay? Nobody stuck around. His Mom had been raised from the dead just to see him and even she didn’t want to be around him more than a few hours every few months. Cas especially, he wasn’t ever gonna –

He flinched when he felt the touch of Cas’s hand on his, reaching out of the grave. “I’m staying, Dean.”

Dean exhaled. Then he clapped his other hand over Cas’s. Had they ever touched like this?

Did it matter?

“Well, good.”

Cas was quicker at digging than Dean had ever been. The ghost made no additional appearance, though Cas said he could feel it passing on, somewhere, as the flames overtook the body in the coffin.

For some reason, Dean watched the flames and thought about tearing curtains apart in his hands. It didn’t feel good to think on, so he did his best to stop.

“You want, uh. You wanna go get a drink someplace?”

Cas raised his arms, gesturing to his dirt covered outfit. It was good seeing him actually wearing jeans for once. Dean had helped him pick them out, he remembered. “Actually, I was just hoping to get home and shower.”

Not wanting to examine the squirming feeling in his chest that came from hearing Cas call the bunker home, Dean clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder and started walking away from the still burning grave. “Alright, you take the car. I’ll walk back. Benefits of taking local jobs.”

Cas smiled at him. “You’re letting me drive the car?”

“Just don’t crash her.”

“I’ll try…”

“Hey, I’m trusting you.”

*

Dean was on his second beer and considering joining in the pool tournament that was just waiting to have better stakes attached to it when he noticed Crowley sitting on the stool beside him.

“Alright, what is it this time?”

“Hell. I needed to get away before doing something I was about to regret.”

Dean shrugged as he watched Crowley make an obnoxious cocktail order. “Maybe you should. Y’know. Throw your weight around a little, remind ‘em who’s boss.”

“You sound like my mother. Stop that.”

“Hey, you came to me. So what’s up? You let Lucifer escape again?”

“Give me some credit. You know I’m not that stupid.”

Dean smirked. “Never know, we’ve got a few over on you before.”

“Mistakes never to be repeated. I’m not so likely to underestimate Satan himself, Dean.”

Shaking his head at the sight of Crowley’s colourful drink being placed down in front of them, Dean picked up his own drink again. “I’m just glad we got to him while he was still being some tired Rockstar and not like, the President or something.”

Crowley’s lips pursed disapprovingly around his straw before he sat up straighter. “You alright, squirrel? You seem… twitchy.”

“Ha.” Dean took another drink and looked away. “I’m fine. Everything’s good.”

“I know. Stop looking for a way to wreck it.”

“Hey.”

Crowley shook his head. “I think you’ve been through too many world-ending events. I think it’s messed with your little brain and now you don’t know how to be happy. Last time I saw you relax you were a demon.”

Scowling, Dean met Crowley’s eyes. “So glad you could stop by.”

“Me too. You looked rather pathetic here on your own. You really need to find more friends.”

“Uh-huh, and why are you here?”

“I don’t need friends. I have underlings.” At Dean continuing to stare him down with only some amusement, Crowley eventually broke and looked away. “But sometimes underlings become dull.”

“I’m your only friend.”

“I am begging you not to put it like that.”

*

It wasn’t all that long a walk home, but Dean hadn’t remembered anything to listen to music with, so he was a little relieved when he saw Sam was calling him. The road he was following felt too quiet, somehow.

“All finished with, no problems.”

“Already?”

“Hey, we make a good team. Mom knows a weird amount about ghouls.”

Though he kept walking, it was with more careful steps now. Dean had thought he’d seen something in the trees – a flash of yellow light… And he felt _watched_. A lifetime in this work and he knew when to trust his gut on that much.

“…But I’m gonna take a few days. Eileen’s not far away and I said I might help her out with something. She thinks she’s found a vamp nest…”

“Eileen?” Dean paused, the name ringing wrong for a moment. Eileen, right. “Oh yeah,” Dean said, feeling a smile tugging at his lips as he recovered. “You gonna show her all that sign language you’ve been practicing?”

“Well, I’m gonna talk to her, yeah.”

“Mmm-hmm. I hope she’s impressed by your finger action…”

“Ok, I’m gonna hang up now.”

Dean took one last look around. Maybe something was following him, but it wasn’t visible. No need to raise any alarms.

Besides. They hadn’t dealt with anything more than small-fry hunts in… well since they’d put Lucifer away. Surely, Dean was bigger and scarier than anything else left out there.

“Keep in touch,” Dean added in at the end. Everyone was safe, everyone was fine, no one was leaving him. But alone at the edge of the road, it was harder to shake the weird feeling he’d had for days that something wasn’t right. It was like waking up from a dream and remembering the feeling but not the details. He just didn’t have the words to shape it into yet.

*

Cas was sitting up in the armchair with a book when Dean came in. For a moment, Cas didn’t look up and Dean dared to keep looking, drinking in the sight of him in Dean’s robe, looking like he belonged in that chair, feet tucked beneath him, hair soft and flopping down over his forehead. Dean hadn’t thought about it much, but it did seem that even if he didn’t buy any product for it he was at least styling his hair up like that on purpose. But now, at home, with just Dean as an audience, he let it down. That felt nice.

“Hey,” Dean said, belatedly announcing himself as he started clunking his way down the staircase. “How’ve you been.”

“I didn’t crash the car.”

“Congratulations.” Sinking himself into the chair across from Cas, Dean watched Cas carefully bookmark the book and put it down on the table between him, choosing to focus his whole attention on Dean once more. “Oh, I heard from Sam. Him and Mom are fine, they’ve finished up with the ghoul thing.”

“Already?”

“See,” Dean said, floppily raising one arm up from the chair, “that’s what I said! Anyway, now Sam’s ran off on another hunt with his not-girlfriend.” He shook his head. “I feel too old for that, now. If you find another hunt within the next twenty-four hours just, just hold it, alright?”

Cas smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Do you… do you feel old?”

Screwing up his face, Dean leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Sometimes. Not like, for the job, exactly. But, I don’t know, things get to me more. I don’t think I can deal with the thought of,” Dean swallowed, “of losing people in the same way anymore. Hell, I saw Crowley tonight and I felt _emotional_ thinking I hadn’t seen him in a while.”

“You saw Crowley?”

Dean leaned his head to one side so that his grin was facing Cas directly. “Why, you jealous?”

Cas, who took an embarrassingly long time to answer that one. “Maybe.”

Not sure how to reply to that, Dean licked over his lips, mind racing as he played for time. “It’s just Crowley,” he said eventually. He would have thought of something better to say, something more to say, but then the yellow light from the woods returned and Dean saw a crack in the world.

Worse, it was a familiar crack.

“What…” Cas said quietly, as he got to his feet. Cas, who was fine and right there beside Dean, walking and talking, not stabbed, not dead.

When Dean saw a limb start slipping through the crack Dean didn’t even think about it as he stood in front of Cas, shielding him from whatever was coming through there.

Everyone telling him to fucking relax when _this_ was always what his life was…

“Dean?”

Dean knew that voice – it was the voice from the laptop. But more than that, he did _know_ it, and he knew the body extricating itself from the light too. But he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to remember.

_Why couldn’t they just leave him alone?_

As the boy – Jack, Dean corrected himself, hating that he knew, still wishing the kid gone, maybe even dead – took a step into the bunker and out of the light the crack disappeared behind him. At the sight of Dean, he beamed like he’d just finished a fucking Easter Egg hunt.

“Poughkeepsie,” he announced, continuing to beam.

Keeping his eyes outstretched in front of Cas, Dean let his eyelids flutter close for a moment. Now he was letting himself think, he wasn’t surprised, not really. Part of him had known. Maybe more than part. He’d just wanted… he’d just wanted to relax. Just for a minute there. Just for a minute. Was that so terrible?

“Sam killed the thing that was keeping you here – he says you just need to wake up now,” Jack continued. Then his smile started to fade as his attention was drawn behind Dean.

“Is that…” His face went slack into what would have been the most adorable little “O” expression if it was anyone else making it. If it wasn’t the thing that had left Cas first brainwashed, then dead.

Dean kept his arms up. “Don’t look at him,” he growled.

“Dean, who is this?” Cas said, stepping around his arms. (Because Cas never stayed put, never stayed safe, never _stayed,_ not even when he promised he would.)

Jack looked like he wanted to cry. Dean was almost sorry.

“Castiel?”

Beside Dean, Cas gave that little squint as his head fell to one side. “Do I know you?”

“Oh,” Jack said. “You… this is what you wanted. You wish I hadn’t happened. Because then…”

“Dean,” Cas said again, more urgently. Cas, who said he was here to stay. Cas, who lied.

“He’s not real,” Jack said quietly, almost as if to remind himself. Then he met Dean’s eyes again. “Dean, none of this is real, and Sam needs you to come back. You’ve already been in here too long.” He shrugged his lanky arms. “I was the last resort.”

Dean knew it was true, he could almost remember being attacked, of that moment of relief he’d felt as the venom hit his system. And Sam needed him. That would always be true. And there was no Eileen, no Mom. Sam didn’t have other people to run around with while Dean…

Dean swallowed. He’d thought he was done breaking.

“Just, just give me a minute,” he said roughly. “I’ll do it, I’ll see you out there.”

Jack looked unsure. “But…”

“Get outta my head, kid,” Dean said, firmer now but still not unkind. He hoped. He was so goddamned tired, and maybe he was tired of being the bad guy too.

A moment later, Jack and the light were gone.

“Dean, who was that?”

“It’s just a nightmare, Cas, don’t worry about it.” Dean said, turning to Cas and drinking in the sight of him, just one more time.

“Cas?”

Cas looked worried now. Dean hadn’t wanted to do that to him, not here. He’d rather hold the image in his head as he’d been.

But even if it was all fake, he had to know. “If I’d… Cas if I…” Dean moved forward, not trusting his words, because they’d always let him down, and he held Cas’s hands like Cas had gripped onto his, earlier. “If I kissed you,” he said, the words tumbling out sounding more wrong than this whole fake bunker was, because it all looked perfect, “and I… I asked you to come with me to bed. Would you… could you even…?”

He wasn’t expecting the kiss. It was probably just one more attempt from the venom coursing through his real and dying body to keep him here, but _fuck_ it felt real. The feeling of Cas’s lips, confidently pressing against his own as Cas’s hands scraped up into his hair, as though trying to stop him from moving away. “Dean, you know I’m not going anywhere. And I’d follow wherever you led.”

The sob rising up in Dean’s throat didn’t feel like it belonged to him. Maybe it didn’t.

“No - you didn’t. You _left_. You, Crowley, Mom… but you said you’d stay. And you chose that kid over me and it got you…”

Dean didn’t want to say it. Every time he said the word aloud it cut him even worse than the memories did. Like admitting it was some kind of small, new betrayal.

“I have to go,” he said simply.

*

When Dean woke up he was too weak to talk, so Sam didn’t make him. Later, when they made it home, he just didn’t feel like it, and Sam, to his credit, didn’t push. Not yet.

He’d apparently forgotten to warn his little protégé the same.

Jack crept into Dean’s kitchen like he thought he could turn invisible. Hell, maybe he could and he just hadn’t figured that one out yet. Give it time.

He didn’t look surprised to see Dean on the floor, a beer in one hand and a pile of photos in his lap.

“Hello.”

Dean nodded at him. That’d do, right?

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

Jack looked unsure about that one too. “For… being here. I ruined everything for you – didn’t I?”

Dean stared and didn’t know how to look away. Eventually, he found his voice, and found that it wasn’t a cruel one. “No, none of that was real – not even when it was real,” he said, almost managing a smile. “Things were never that easy with Crowley, or Mom, whenever they were around. Cas never really stayed with us, even when he could.”

“I’m sorry.”

Dean rolled his eyes and let his head thunk back against the fridge. “Quit apologising, kid.”

“I wasn’t…” Jack bit his lip and took a seat beside Dean. A little too close. “I just thought that’s what you were supposed to say when people are sad.”

They sat in silence for a moment, but Jack couldn’t keep to that for long. Craning his neck over Dean’s shoulder he spied a photo of Cas. Well, of all three of them - Bobby had taken it, without telling them. It was back when the apocalypse was looming and Cas was learning humanity the hard way. But he looked as happy as Dean had ever really seen him in this shot of their backs as they all piled into the car.

“What was he like?”

Dean tightened his grip on the photos. “Didn’t you figure that all out when you were controlling his mind?”

“Not really. I wasn’t exactly… me, then. I just knew he was the best person to look after me.”

“He would have been,” Dean agreed after a moment. He badly wanted to snatch the photos away out of Jack’s sight, a seven year old boy again fending off his baby brother’s sticky fingers from the few relics of Mom left to them. And Cas’d had even less to leave him with.

Except a kid, maybe.

A kid who might end up ending the world, a kid who’d already taken away so much of it, but a kid.

He sighed. He wondered for the millionth time when his Dad had found out what he did about Sam, about how much that might have changed how he looked at him, how he treated him. About whether that knowledge had ever given him the right.

“What do you wanna know?”

*

**Author's Note:**

> hunting down the rest of the tropes i've apparently never written and having an angst ridden little day off go me!!
> 
> anyway i love all the fluffy widower arc ideas but also what IF it got worse before it actually was allowed to get better and jack and dean had a real relationship huh
> 
> i guess this is set somewhere between 13.03 and 4??


End file.
